Do Small Schools Actually Give an Employment Benefit?
Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 4:02 am
I find the logic that a smaller school has a placement advantage a little bit hard to believe. Lets take the example of Stanford Law School. I understand that firms MIGHT want at least one SLS person and if you're the only one who applies from SLS, then your chances might go up. However, I wonder how realistic that scenario is. Even with a small class, you won't be the ONLY one going for any significant NYC/DC biglaw job. You might have to compete with fewer people from your own school, but firms also tend to hire many more Harvard kids than Stanford kids. Shouldn't that balance out? It seems to me that Harvard/Stanford are seen as peer schools. Thus, the estimated class rank cutoffs for firms will be essentially the same. If they are the same, then I don't see how Harvard kids are at a disadvantage. Why would a firm decide to hire an SLS kid instead of an otherwise equal Harvard kid with better grades? The only reason I can think of is if they are trying to land just one Stanford kid and they haven't got one applying who is equal to the Harvard kid with better grades, but I feel like that is a much rarer scenario than people realize. At the same time, I can also see a firm hiring a kid from one school over another due to alumni ties, and the HLS alumni network is significantly larger, so they should benefit from this more. I feel like these two effects should essentially cancel out.
I have a theory, though, as to why SLS might have a lower strike out rate. Stanford is an incredibly selective school, but is known as a black box in admissions. What this means is that much of their admissions decision is made based on consideration of things outside the numbers: amazing work experience, demonstration of a good personality through essays and recs, interesting backgrounds, advanced degrees (in fact, 13% of HLS students have an advanced degree compared to 34% for SLS) etc. I think its reasonable to believe that these same soft factors could be what is helping SLS students get a job despite bad grades. In that sense, then, SLS' admissions strategy might really work for its students. Because it is considered a peer school to Harvard, the students are considered just as smart, despite having lower LSAT/GPA (significantly so in terms of LSAT). At the same time, they are accepting people who, on average, probably have more interesting and compelling soft factors that employers will like. In a sense, Stanford kids get to use what got them into Stanford again during the job search, whereas Harvard kids can't put their LSAT scores on their resumes, so what frequently got them in doesn't help them again. As a result, kids at Stanford might do better than those with equal grades at Harvard, but the comparison isn't really valid because the SLS and HLS students are not otherwise similar.
If this were true, though, there are interesting implications. It would mean that no individual student should go to SLS over HLS for better employment prospects. SLS' slightly better employment stats, in this case, are due to being a peer school that has students with stronger softs, but for an individual student, his or her softs are already fixed; he won't have better softs just by virtue of going to SLS. Therefore, his employment prospects will not be improved.
To some degree, the same could be argued for Yale. I think a good deal of their somewhat superior employment numbers over Harvard comes down to the fact that their students come in with better soft factors. Unlike Stanford, though, I would not argue that this is everything. I think many view Yale as a step above Harvard, and thus assume the students are smarter. So while it may be justifiable to go to Yale over HLS for better employment prospects due to the assumption of higher intelligence, I think the difference for an individual student (whose softs are, of course, fixed) is less than it may seem.
Since small schools tend to focus more on soft factors (since they can't accept all the applicants with their requisite numbers, so they differentiate based on softs), I think this is what gives small schools a statistical advantage in employment. I would argue, though, that it is not an advantage that people should consider when choosing between schools.
(Please note that this is not a troll on SLS, by any means. It's a great school and I believe it is a peer with Harvard, I just don't think it is logical to think its small size makes it easier to get a job from there than HLS)
I have a theory, though, as to why SLS might have a lower strike out rate. Stanford is an incredibly selective school, but is known as a black box in admissions. What this means is that much of their admissions decision is made based on consideration of things outside the numbers: amazing work experience, demonstration of a good personality through essays and recs, interesting backgrounds, advanced degrees (in fact, 13% of HLS students have an advanced degree compared to 34% for SLS) etc. I think its reasonable to believe that these same soft factors could be what is helping SLS students get a job despite bad grades. In that sense, then, SLS' admissions strategy might really work for its students. Because it is considered a peer school to Harvard, the students are considered just as smart, despite having lower LSAT/GPA (significantly so in terms of LSAT). At the same time, they are accepting people who, on average, probably have more interesting and compelling soft factors that employers will like. In a sense, Stanford kids get to use what got them into Stanford again during the job search, whereas Harvard kids can't put their LSAT scores on their resumes, so what frequently got them in doesn't help them again. As a result, kids at Stanford might do better than those with equal grades at Harvard, but the comparison isn't really valid because the SLS and HLS students are not otherwise similar.
If this were true, though, there are interesting implications. It would mean that no individual student should go to SLS over HLS for better employment prospects. SLS' slightly better employment stats, in this case, are due to being a peer school that has students with stronger softs, but for an individual student, his or her softs are already fixed; he won't have better softs just by virtue of going to SLS. Therefore, his employment prospects will not be improved.
To some degree, the same could be argued for Yale. I think a good deal of their somewhat superior employment numbers over Harvard comes down to the fact that their students come in with better soft factors. Unlike Stanford, though, I would not argue that this is everything. I think many view Yale as a step above Harvard, and thus assume the students are smarter. So while it may be justifiable to go to Yale over HLS for better employment prospects due to the assumption of higher intelligence, I think the difference for an individual student (whose softs are, of course, fixed) is less than it may seem.
Since small schools tend to focus more on soft factors (since they can't accept all the applicants with their requisite numbers, so they differentiate based on softs), I think this is what gives small schools a statistical advantage in employment. I would argue, though, that it is not an advantage that people should consider when choosing between schools.
(Please note that this is not a troll on SLS, by any means. It's a great school and I believe it is a peer with Harvard, I just don't think it is logical to think its small size makes it easier to get a job from there than HLS)